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Bay Area News Group $4.95
A BAY AREA NEWS GROUP PREMIUM EDITION 2020
Oakland residents J.R. and Jenny Matheson celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary in memorable style at Berkeley’s Ax Ventures.
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49 ways to have fun in the Bay Area and beyond
MODERN MINI GOLF
V I R T UA L R E A L I T Y A DV E N T U R E S
P I N BA L L A N D O L D -S C H O O L D E L I G H T S
A CHESS MASTER
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7 D E V I L I S H LY C L E V E R E S CA P E R O O M S
N E W WAV E GAMING
B OA R D G A M E CA F E S
Q U I D D I TC H IN REAL LIFE
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C O V E R I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y J O S I E P O R T I L L O
credits SECTION EDITOR
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COPY EDITING
Jackie Burrell
David Jack Browning Jennifer Schaefer Chris Gotsill
Sue Gilmore
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Putt San Francisco resident Tom Walsh tees off on the first hole at the city’s Stagecoach Greens miniature golf course and gets in the spirit of things. When you’ve got plaid socks like these, there’s no need for golf knickers. DOUG DURAN/STAFF
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it there, folks! San Francisco’s madcap mini-golf courses maximize the fun BY ANGELA HILL
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The whimsically reimagined Salesforce Tower and Transamerica Pyramid duke it out at Stagecoach Greens’ San Francisco skyscapeinspired hole, where towering buildings compete for the title of Alpha in the Air.
he first hole on Stagecoach Greens minigolf course in San Francisco’s booming Mission Bay neighborhood totally rocks. In fact, it’s a rock — that rocks. “This hole tells the story of the Rocking Stone up in the Sierra — a place the Washoe Indians used to store their food because the rock moved when something touched it, which would deter animals. “But with this one, you putt through the middle of it,” says Jan Stearns, who, along with her equally mini-golf-loving wife, Esther, created this 18-hole outdoor course of whimsy and history right in the middle of the city. Golfers putt-putt their way into an Old West saloon, up the tongue of a Chinese dragon or around a Transamerica Pyramid that has somehow sprouted arms and is duking it out with the Salesforce Tower for the title of tallest building. This is miniature golf, 21st-century style, at places like Stagecoach, Urban Putt in the Mission and Subpar in Ghirardelli Square.
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Gone are the windmills and the dreaded ant hills, replaced with intricate artist-made kinetic creations — kind of mini Maker Faires with golf thrown in. Plus, there are often gourmet food options and even adult beverages. Who could ask for more? The aptly named Urban Putt on South Van Ness opened in 2014 with an indoor 14-hole course and a full restaurant and bar, quickly becoming the cool, popular spot for the tech crowd, often booked for private events by Facebook or Google. What they lack in acreage, they make up for in elaborate decor and special effects. Here, a perfect putt sends robotic fingers tickling the keys of a player piano or speeding on a journey past a pink squid and into an incredibly detailed Capt. Nemo’s Nautilus. On the next hole, watch your ball climb a conveyor belt through the eye socket of an intricate Dia de los Muertos skull. Over at Subpar Miniature Golf, which began in Alameda but moved to Ghirardelli Square last year, San Francisco has been turned outside-in on this indoor 18-hole course. There’s a downsized replica of the Golden Gate Bridge — with a double loop-deloop on the roadbed. You can putt down the twists and turns of a refreshingly traffic-free Lombard Street, roll around Alcatraz Island and escape to play through a sweet row of Victorians. Stagecoach is the only outdoor mini course in the city so far. It opened in 2018 on Fourth Street,
Each hole at Stagecoach Greens reflects local history, including this Barbary Coast saloon-themed set, complete with piano, wanted poster and painted barkeep. DOUG DURAN/STAFF
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just a Par 5 away from Oracle Park and the Chase Center, and has scored 125,000 golfers in its first year. The Stearns say the project came together in serendipitous fashion — pretty much like a hole in one. Loving mini-golf as they do, the Stearns had hatched a plan in 2017 to build their own course up in Truckee. They started researching the idea and coming up with designs. But while the plan was still in the works, the San Francisco residents happened upon a neighborhood meeting agenda with an upcoming vote on a minigolf proposal — just blocks from where the Stearns live. They met the man behind the plan, Carlos Muela — already known for his Mission Bay food-truck hub, Spark Social — who was planning a project called ParkLab Gardens, a family-friendly gathering spot set between Oracle Park and the Chase Center. His concept included food trucks, a beer garden, Nordic tents, picnic tables, a play area — and a mini-golf course. “He had spent a year getting the approval and the site, but he told us he didn’t have an actual plan for the golf course,” Esther Stearns says. “We said, ‘Well that’s funny, ’cause we have a plan!’ ” So the Stearns quickly reconfigured their designs for the 10,000-square-foot space. “We wanted to make it 100-percent
San Francisco-inspired miniature golf holes — hello, Sutro Tower — trace the Golden State’s boom and bust history. It’s one of several new-wave putt-putt courses that offer artistic whimsy alongside the tees. DOUG DURAN/STAFF
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ADA accessible,” Esther Stearns says. “Plus we wanted to tell more of a story than the old-style mini-golf courses. We wanted to do it with a high level of artistic expression. And San Francisco is great for all those things.” They hired a stage-designing firm that worked with more than 150 Bay Area artists to create the course and tell the story of California’s “Boom and Bust,” taking guests through the Gold Rush era, on through the Summer of Love and into the tech boom. It’s a mini-golf, mini-history lesson. “Some schools are even using it in their curriculum,” Esther Stearns says. There are kiosks at each hole that illuminate the story and buttons that set off sounds or motion. There’s the Gold Rush Graveyard, where you putt through the side of a pine-box coffin, and, if you’re lucky, the coffin’s resident pops out for a quick hello. Instead of timing your ball to slide past spinning windmill blades, you shoot through a turning wagon wheel. Little kids try to peek inside windows of the intricate Victorian dollhouse. And there’s a mini Sutro Tower, complete with blinking beacons to warn low-flying aircraft — not this low, we hope! And all around are birthday parties at the picnic tables, food trucks like Hookt Mini Doughnuts and Persian BBQ 415, palm trees lining the streets and strings of white lights dangling above. Twenty-first-century mini-golf definitely rocks.
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It’s the tongue that’s so tricky at Dragon’s Gate, a Chinatown-inspired miniature golf hole at Stagecoach Greens, which opened in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco in 2018. DOUG DURAN/STAFF
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mini-golf courses to explore
Stagecoach Greens: Open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily at 1379 Fourth St. in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood. Tickets are $16 for teens and adults, $10 for kids 12 and younger; www.stagecoachgreens.com.
Urban Putt: Opens at 4 p.m. weekdays and 11 a.m. weekends at 1096 S. Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco’s Mission district. $12 for teens and adults, $8 for kids 12 and younger; www. urbanputt.com.
Subpar Miniature Golf: Opens at 10 a.m. daily at 900 North Point St. at San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square. $12 for adults, $8 for seniors, teens and kids; www.subparminigolf. com.
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’Round and ’round and ’round he goes, and where he paints, the carousel glows B Y C I R R U S WO O D
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immy Raun-Byberg has painted amusement park rides for 35 years. “I was a professional artist beforehand,” he says. Many would say Raun-Byberg still is. He’s been touching up the rides at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk since 1999. “My father told me never to flip hamburgers, and that was the best advice he ever gave me,” he says. “I painted portraits, did illustration, did whatever it took to pay rent.” Each winter, the 72-year-old Raun-Byberg repaints the Boardwalk’s Looff Carousel, which dates back to 1911. “I’ve been riding that carousel since I was 6 years old,” he says. “They’re all the original horses, all hand carved out of basswood, and they’re all beautiful.”
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How did you start working at amusement parks?
I got a call from this guy that worked for Ed Morgan (of Arrow Development, a maker of amusement park rides), asking me if I wanted an art job with medical benefits. That sounded pretty good to me, because after Christmas, things would get a bit lean. So I went to work for Morgan. He needed someone to do painting, airbrush work, and I could do all that stuff. We painted stuff all over the world. I worked at Disney, I worked for Universal Studios, Dollywood, Myrtle Beach, (Six Flags) Fiesta Texas in San Antonio. Dubai. Japan. All over the place.
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What were some of the memorable experiences from
Professional artist Jimmy Raun-Byberg has painted amusement park rides for 35 years. Each winter, he repaints the horses of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s Looff Carousel, which dates back to 1911. RANDY VAZQUEZ/STAFF
that time?
There’s 73 of them.
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Too many motels. Too much restaurant food. Too much hanging out with the same guys day and night. But one memorable experience, for me, was to sculpt and paint the Dr. Seuss carousel in Orlando, Florida, for Universal Studios. Another memorable one was some work at Disney’s California Adventure. It was a very unusual carousel, all undersea creatures: seahorses, whales, dolphins.
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Do the animals at the Santa Cruz boardwalk carousel have names?
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Oh yeah. I’ve named a bunch of them. Buttercup, Excalibur, Guinevere and on and on and on. I haven’t named them all.
Do you have a favorite?
Excalibur. That was the one that was my favorite when I was a kid — also my son’s favorite and my grandson’s favorite. It’s a warhorse. It’s black, and the head is covered with silver armor.
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What goes through your head when you visit other amusement parks?
Frankly, I don’t go to other amusement parks. I spent so many years traveling around them, looking at work and comparing it to my expertise. I don’t go to amusement parks on vacation. I work at one. I’d rather go to a deserted island.
SANTA CRUZ BEACH BOARDWALK Charles I.D. Looff, whose first carousel project was installed at Coney Island in 1876, and his family are known for the extravagant carousels and other amusement park rides they built in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s Looff Carousel opened in
1911, followed by Looff’s Giant Dipper wooden roller coaster in 1924. The boardwalk’s mini golf, giant arcade and games are open daily yearround, and some rides are open on weekends and holidays throughout the winter months. 400 Beach St., Santa Cruz; https://beachboardwalk.com.
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New VR technology ramps up the fun by engaging all your body’s senses at once
GAMING GOES ALL IN B Y C H U C K BA R N E Y
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IT’S nOT every day that you find yourself fighting Klingons in downtown San Francisco. But here I am, inexplicably locked in an ultra-intense battle against what feels like endless waves of hostile, sword-wielding, armor-clad alien warriors, who apparently crave my demise. I take cover and fire upon them repeatedly with my super-cool phaser gun. But they just keep coming and coming. “Surrender at once, human!” the Klingon commander yells. “And your death shall be quick!” For a few pulse-pounding moments, I’m able to keep his ruthless troops at bay. Suddenly, though, I turn to discover that one has lurched up from behind and is breathing down my neck.
Previous page: San Francisco residents Yool Hee Jin, left, Minju Kim, Yu Jung Lee, Sang Hyuk Cho and Juyong Kim get in the spirit of the game at a virtual reality experience at Sandbox VR. Right: Off to fight some Klingons, virtual reality fans prepare to enter the Sandbox game space. RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF
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AAAAARRRRRGGGG!
It’s a close encounter of the hideous kind — and it would be downright terrifying if it weren’t so fun. That’s because this ferocious firefight is just part of the mind-blowing “Star Trek: Discovery”-themed adventure at Sandbox VR, a virtual-reality amusement center on Market Street. Sandbox, which also has a space in San Mateo, is one of several companies attempting to take cutting-edge virtual-reality technology and boldly go in a more ambitious, visually stunning, fullbody direction while developing a new genre of entertainment. “A lot of people tend to think that VR is just putting on a headset and watching a movie at home or seeing a game play out in front of you while you have a controller in your hand,” says Susan Washburn, store manager for San Francisco’s Sandbox VR. “We’re making it not only more immersive, but interactive with other people.” Or as company CEO and founder Steve Zhao puts it: “This is something bigger and better. ... It’s not a game, it’s not a movie, it’s not traditional VR. It’s a full-body experience that completely transforms you, where you become the experience itself.” Also making a big splash in the location-based VR realm is The Void, which offers experiences linked to popular films such as “Star Wars,” “Ghostbusters” and “Jumanji.” The Void operated a pop-up space in the Atrium at Westfield San Francisco Center late last summer and plans to open a permanent venue there soon. The company has set itself apart from rivals with an approach that moves players across an expansive physical set with
sensory elements, allowing them to physically interact with their environment. Curtis Hickman, co-founder and chief creative officer of The Void, insists that it’s all part of making the experience “as authentic as possible.” “We take people into these impossible worlds and enable them to live these impossible moments,” he says. “You and your friends become characters in the movie. And if it’s hot, you feel the heat. If there’s a wall, you can touch it. If there’s a waterfall, you feel the moisture.” Industry insiders hope that free-roam VR experiences, with their communal appeal, lavish settings and powerful storytelling, are the next entertainment craze. Sandbox VR has drawn votes of confidence from investors including Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Will Smith and former Golden State Warriors star Kevin Durant. The Void, meanwhile, has formed partnerships with some of Hollywood’s biggest franchises. It operates 16 centers globally, including 11 in the U.S. “I’ve seen a lot of skeptics going into (the Void experiences). But I never see one going out,” Hickman says. “It’s not a gimmick. It’s not a fad. It’s the future of entertainment.” Speaking of the future, I have some pesky Klingons to subdue — and, fortunately, Washburn is kind enough to offer some aid to this awkward rookie gamer. Our adventure began in a spacious, gray room that instantly transforms into an icy alien planet. Clad in special gear, we (and our avatars) assume the roles of Starfleet officers who are directed to investigate a distress signal. Mission accepted, naturally. The experience lasts about 30 minutes, during which we are “beamed” to various locales and face off against one menacing threat after another. Along the way, we use tricorders to scan our
WHERE TO PLAY There are virtual reality game spaces sprinkled across the Bay Area, including Sandbox VR, which is open daily at San Mateo’s Hillsdale Shopping Center at 60 E. 31st Ave. and a San Francisco pop-up at 767 Market St. Tickets are $48 per person. https://sandboxvr.com. Find more information on The Void at www.thevoid.com.
whereabouts and hunt for clues. Enhancing the immersive enterprise are haptic vests that pulsate during the “teleportation” process. The “Star Trek” VR experience also contains some competitive elements: The more enemies you kill, the higher your score goes. To that end, Washburn valiantly tries to make up for my slack, blasting away at the targets that I miss or overlook and being a super-good sport about it. Fortunately, the game has a nice feature that allows participants to revive a “downed” friend. Washburn was forced to revive me more often than I want to admit, while I came to her rescue only a couple of times. Final score? Ugh. She smoked me. But the stats tell only part of the story. More important is the thrill of experiencing a strange new fantasy world and working together to get through it. As the slogan outside the Sandbox VR facility proclaims: “In here, it’s possible.” “We have people who are gamers and who aren’t gamers,” Washburn says. “Adults come in to enjoy it with children. And we have a lot of corporate outings where employees work on team building. It can help you figure out who has your back, quite literally.” Which is vitally important when you’re trying to kick Klingon butt.
Minju Kim and her friends channel their inner Starfleet officers as virtual Klingons approach. RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF
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Score!
Video game composer Bajakian goes beyond the bloops and bleeps BY J I M H A R R I N G TO N
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f you’ve played video games over the last 25 years, you’ve probably heard the music of Clint Bajakian. The Novato composer, who received the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Audio Network Guild, boasts credits on 200-plus video game titles, including the crazy-popular “World of Warcraft” series. He’s worked in the music departments at Sony PlayStation and LucasArts and currently teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music — and he plays in a Grateful Dead tribute band known as The Eleven.
What kind of music did you listen to growing up?
When I was around 12, I started getting into heavy metal Black Sabbath, KISS, Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult. Then around 13 or 14, I got pulled more over to Grateful Dead; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Jefferson Airplane and more of the psychedelic stuff.
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When did you really get serious about music as a career?
I went to Northwestern, not really knowing what I wanted to do. I was liberal arts. I was pretty good at guitar. I had some sense of how to read music. But a (violinist) friend of mine would play this Bach piece with me over and over again. I called my dad and said, “Hey, can I come back to Boston and study classical guitar and get into a formal
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musical education?” A year later, I found myself attending the New England Conservatory.
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What is the biggest misconception about video game music?
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People who don’t know better, still harken back to the original video game days, when it was bloops and beeps. They think that somehow, we’re not going to Abbey Road (studios in London) and hiring 110-piece orchestras. We are. Since around 2000, we’ve been working with live orchestras and top musicians, and recording in venues like Nashville, London, New York, L.A. and right here in San Francisco. We’ve been working with the same talent pool, frankly, that the film industry works with.
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How many people hear your work? I mean, what’s the
reach of something like “World of Warcraft”?
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It is mind-boggling how profoundly deeply it is appreciated by a fan base out there, who really pay attention to the music. I find Facebook friend requests from all over the world. I think the video game fan base is more appreciative of the musical component than motion picture (fans) are of the music in motion pictures.
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Do you play video games yourself?
I tend to play games that I work on, of course. I’ve tended not to be as much of a gamer outside of that. So, if I am home in the evening, I am probably watching news or just being with my family or having dinner.
BAJAKIAN’S 5 FAVORITE VIDEO GAME SOUNDTRACKS “Tomb Raider”: Music by Jason Graves (2013 Crystal Dynamics/Square Enix) “Jason’s well-crafted orchestral score employs sophisticated adaptive musical techniques, such as multiple segments and layers to punctuate game play,” Bajakian says. “Uncharted 2”: Music by Greg Edmonson (2009 Naughty Dog/Sony PlayStation) The strong storyline, which takes place in the Himalayas, “dramatically guides Greg’s expressive and melodic orchestral score with numerous world instruments from the region.” “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”: Music by Koji Kondo (1998 Nintendo) “One of the most cherished soundtracks in video game history, Koji’s delightful music defines (protagonist) Link’s fantasy world – and the player can play a virtual ocarina!” “God of War II”: Music by Gerard Marino, Mike Reagan, Ron Fish and Cris Velasco. (2007 Santa Monica Studio/Sony PlayStation) “A team collaboration innovated this hard-hitting orchestral-choral soundtrack to evoke a brutal mythological universe.” “Call of Duty: WWII”: Music by Wilbert Roget (2017 Sledgehammer Games/ Activision) “Wil’s brilliant orchestral writing takes this WWII experience to a high dramatic pitch, telling the story in cinematic sequences and gameplay alike.”
The stunning scores in the “World of Warcraft” hail from the mind of composer Clint Bajakian, who teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and creates music on his Steinway & Sons baby grand at home. ANDA CHU/STAFF
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Coin-operated fun carries on Old-school pinball machines and penny arcades still pull in the players BY A N G E L A H I L L
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he pings and pops and pongs of old-school pinball machines are the sounds of playtimes past. But at Southern California’s Museum of Pinball — which houses close to 1,400 vintage machines in a massive 40,000 square-foot building — the past has come to the present in a cacophonous convergence, the likes of which could send ear-plug salesmen over the moon. “When everything’s going at one of our annual events, it’s tremendous,” says Chuck Casey, curator of the nonprofit museum in Banning, not far from Palm Springs. “Then add in the boings and the pew-pews coming from the vintage games in our video-arcade room, and it’s really something. “In fact, the one complaint we got on the pinball website Pinside was about the noise. To me, it’s a beautiful sound.” Indeed, vintage pinball and antique penny-arcade games are as popular as ever at places like this, as well as at the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda and Musee Mechanique at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s
Alameda’s Pacific Pinball museum houses 1,000 pinball machines, including 90 that can be played by visitors. D. ROSS CAMERON/ STAFF FILE
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Wharf, which houses more than 300 penny arcade games and mechanical musical instruments from the 19th and 20th centuries. And while these spots may be called museums, their collections are not just for erudite examination. They’re still all about their original intention — fun. OK, “fun” might not be the right word to describe The French Execution machine in the Musee Mechanique — we’ll get to that in a sec. But the whole idea is to encourage play, all while absorbing some history, art, culture and even mathematics — any true pinball wizard knows there’s lots of geometry involved. At Pacific Pinball, with more than 90 playable pinball machines out of about 1,500 in their collection — everything from a 1946 Queen of Hearts to a 1989 Black Knight — they’ve recently started emphasizing that learning experience along with the fun. “We will always offer the games for a fun outing,” says Evan Phillippe, the museum’s marketing director. “But we’re refreshing the front of our museum to emphasize the connection between pinball and science, mathematics and education. There are a lot of mechanics involved: the way the machines were made, the skills involved to play. Pinball is so tactile. Unlike video games, you’re controlling something that’s in free movement. “And the history,” he said. “It’s a really rich history, becoming popular in the 19th century, then really developing during the Depression as a distraction for the masses and bursting even more into popularity during the baby boom.” Even the backglasses — the designs on the vertical back panel of the games — are works of art. They tell their own stories about the era and the culture in which they were created. Games are all set on “free play” with an entry fee, but there’s no charge if you
San Francisco’s Musee Mecanique on Fisherman’s Wharf is home to more than 300 penny arcade and pinball games from the 19th and 20th century, as well as Playland at the Beach memorabilia that dates back to 1913. KARL MONDON/STAFF
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want to peek in and just take a look at the cool machines. Banning’s Museum of Pinball takes a different approach. A nonprofit, it can’t afford to be open daily and instead holds huge special events on its 18-acre “campus” that includes a café, bar, theater and outdoor patio. Events — some draw up to 4,000 people — include an annual arcade expo, a professional pinball tournament and even a Halloween-themed pinball party. “We’re not here to make money, but to share this collection and promote the nostalgia, the whole pop culture of it,” Casey says. “There’s definitely a big resurgence in interest. You have people like me, 50-year-olds who love the nostalgia, and you also have millennials who want something cool to do. “One thing I really like about this, it’s very inclusive to anybody,” he says. “Anything like this, from Comic-Cons to the resurgence of the arcades — there’s no politics, no race. You can be a weirdo, a lawyer, a nerd. It’s really neat.” Yes, even jaded San Franciscans love this stuff at Musee Mechanique. While Fisherman’s Wharf may be too tourist-trappy for many, the Musee is a huge draw for visitors and locals alike. Dan Zelinsky is the keeper of the arcade flame here — and the daily repairer of the working antique coin-operated games. It’s a family tradition that began with his dad, the late Ed Zelinsky, a joyfully obsessive collector of all things mechanical and quirky. The quirkier the better. “I grew up with this stuff,” Dan Zelinsky says. “My dad started collecting long before I was born, and they were all over our house — in the basement, in the closet, in the hallways, in the kitchen. And not just the arcade games. He had steam cars in the garage, slot machines and player pianos in the living room, music boxes in the den, bird boxes in the library.” The first public display location for some of the collection was under The Dock restaurant in Tiburon, mid-last century. It was later moved to the basement area of the Cliff House at Ocean Beach in the 1960s, and then to its current popular spot at Pier 45 in 2002. Each machine is a miracle of BAY AREA NEWS GROUP
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mechanical engineering. Zelinsky calls it “just a barrage of wonderful.” There’s a carnival made entirely of toothpicks, with moving merry-go-rounds and rides. There’s a Kiss-o-Meter to rate if you’re “hot stuff” or “ice cold.” A life-size mechanical horse and rider. Weird puppets that tap dance. Old-school photo booths. A tiny golf course with three holes and little mechanical players. Oh, and there’s The French Execution. You drop in a coin and a curtain rises to reveal a tiny guillotine and its unfortunate victim. A quick slice, and down goes the curtain again. Weird! “I get a lot of comments on that one,” he says. “Like, why it exists, why someone would build it, and why are we enjoying it?” It’s free to go to the Musee and look around. And if you want to play, there are plenty of change machines, because these games all take actual hard-copy cash. “Watching the evolution has been interesting,” Zelinsky says. “The technology for one. I notice people not being able to interact with machines like they used to. Literally there are people who don’t know you can drop a coin in a coin slot, or that you have to look into a machine to see the visual 3D effects. “That’s why I love to keep this going,” he says. “It’s fun to watch people discover this stuff.”
Museum of Pinball: Open for special events only, including arcade expos and professional pinball tournaments, at 700 S. Hathaway St., Banning. Find prices and event information, including the arcade expo slated for March 14-16, at www.museumofpinball.org. Pacific Pinball Museum: Open Tuesdays-Sundays — Mondays are fix-it nights to repair the machiens — at 1510 Webster St., Alameda. Admission is $20 for adults, $10 for kids, but games are set on free-play; www.pacificpinball.org. Musée Mécanique: Open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, including holidays, at Pier 45 on Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco. Admission is free; https:// museemecanique.com.
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Vintage cases house a variety of puppets, marionettes and oldschool animatronic characters at the Musee Mecanique. KARL MONDON/STAFF
Left: Pacific Pinball on Alameda Island is one of just three California museums devoted to the vintage games. D. ROSS CAMERON/ STAFF FILE
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Gamesmanship meets camaraderie at San Francisco’s historic chess club BY ANGELA HILL
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hess is a moving experience. Bold bishops cut strategic swaths across the board. Daring knights gallop hither and yon, attacking unsuspecting pawns and making their moves on the queen. In the Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club in San Francisco — believed to be the oldest chess club in the country — such epic battles regularly ensue amid the outward hush of mental machinations. We recently spoke with chess director Abel Talamantez for a little more info about this Bay Area hidden gem:
Can you tell us about the club’s history?
It really ties in with the history of the Mechanics’ Institute, which was founded in 1854 as an intellectual and cultural institution. The Chess Club is part of MI’s charter, and it’s the oldest continuously operating chess club in the country. We’ve been at this location since 1906. Our dedicated chess room has our restored, 100-year-old, old-school chess tables. It’s really a special place.
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Who plays chess these days?
It’s really diverse. We have some unique individuals. It’s a really committed culture. The people who come to our club have come for many, many years. It’s a refuge. There’s a sense of belonging where they’re able to express themselves here through their play. People really rely on the club for the aspect of the social interaction too, the special events, more than just a place with a chessboard.
GREAT SPOTS TO PLAY CHESS The Chess Club: The club, which is open for casual play from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends, is located at the landmark Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post St., in San Francisco’s Financial District. Learn more at www.chessclub.org. Santana Row Chess Plaza: A giant chessboard with oversize playing pieces and several chess tables await players in the plaza (356 Santana Row) near the Vintage Wine Bar, Le Jardin Tequila Bar and other restaurants. Players can borrow chess sets from the Santana Row Concierge; www.santanarow.com.
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Who can play at the club?
We offer regular tournaments and casual play open for anyone at different levels of
experience. You don’t have to be a member of the Institute to play, but (being a member) does provide lots of other benefits. Once a month, we have a Monday evening tournament. We have weekly Tuesday Night Marathons, the biggest league day in the whole country. It’s been going on for decades. We organize state championship events, offer lectures and lessons. We also provide free chess classes to hundreds of San Francisco public school students each week, bringing chess to the next generation. Studies show chess can help kids with focusing, planning, problem solving, troubleshooting, sportsmanship.
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How has the chess world changed?
You would think with the growth of technology and the ability of players not to have to play in person, we wouldn’t need a club anymore. But the need for having a live person in front of you and the benefit of
Chess club director Abel Talamantez runs the rooks and knights at San Francisco’s Mechanics’ Institute, whose chess club dates back to the Gold Rush. RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF
being able to interact is really, really important. That said, we’re using technology as a tool in the way chess is brought to the world. Very recently, we’ve been able to broadcast our big events online on a platform that allows us to do live commentary and with boards that have electronic sensors, so people can follow the moves. Along with game commentary, we also do a lot of interviews to give people a feel for the players. We try to connect with the people, not just the game.
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Where are other great places to play in the Bay Area?
Well, while I work here in San Francisco, I live in San Jose, and a really nice outdoor spot is at Santana Row. In the middle of the courtyard, they have some chess tables and a big giant chess board with giant pieces. It’s also right by the tequila bar, so it’s a great place to play.
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scape rooms have become an inescapable phenomenon, with more than 60 iterations of these immersive locked-room puzzles sprinkled across the Bay Area and thousands more across the nation. There are scary imprisoned-with-zombies versions for thrill seekers, steampunk adventures for the historically inclined and whimsical, family-friendly rooms, too. Playing is simple: Book a game, gather your cleverest friends and enter an elaborately decked-out room — or series of rooms — and decipher your way back out. What these games all have in common are marvelously perplexing, elaborately crafted puzzles. Here’s just a sampling of the Bay Area’s best.
THE ESCAPE GAME San Francisco
The year is 1955. You’ve been wrongfully accused of a crime, and sentenced to life in a dank, dreary, Alcatraz-like prison cell. It all seems utterly hopeless — unless you can find a way to bust outta the joint with the help of another inmate. Welcome to “Prison Break,” the most intensely
Previous page: Cryptic clues and mysterious puzzles await in the elaborately designed Roosevelt Escape Room at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. PALACE GAMES
Right: San Francisco’s Escape Game offers some fiendishly clever escape rooms, including the Alcatraz-like Prison Break, where ingenuity is required to break out of the slammer. NHAT V. MEYER/STAFF
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challenging of five games at this highly entertaining venue. If doing time in the slammer doesn’t sound all that arresting, you can participate in a daring art heist, hunt for gold, or even head to Morocco on a crucial special-ops mission. And then there’s something that feels more like homework — a game called “The Playground” that challenges players to ace some tricky assignments before earning a final report card. Each room here is high on eyepleasing production values, and adrenaline rushes are common. Details: The hour-long games are priced at $42 per player. Capacity for “The Playground” is four to 12 players; other games can be played by two to eight players, ages 13 and up. (Younger players are allowed, but some of the content may be too difficult for them.) The Escape Game is located at 150 Kearny St., San Francisco; theescapegame.com/sanfrancisco
BEAT THE ROOM Vacaville
The emphasis is on family-friendly entertainment at this four-room venue. Among the adventures in store is a trip across the pond to 221B Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes mysteriously has gone missing while investigating the Bridge Street murders. Your mission? Track down the iconic sleuth — but time, of course, is of the essence. Other experiences include an initiation process administered by a powerful secret society, a potentially ominous brush with prohibition-era mobsters and a bit of risky plundering aboard Black Bart’s pirate ship, where — if you mess up — you just might have to walk the plank. Yo ho, yo ho, where’s Jack Sparrow when you need him?
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Details: Prices range from $29 to $35 per person. Each room is designed for two to eight people, ages 14 and up. (The age restriction does not apply if an entire room is booked for a private experience.) Beat the Room is located at 814 Alamo Drive, Vacaville; www.beattheroom.com
PALACE GAMES San Francisco
It’s only fitting that the three escape rooms at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts began with Harry Houdini. The famous escape artist was among the attractions at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition when it opened in 1915 — and Houdini designed a mysterious puzzle room here to stump his brilliant friends, Thomas Edison and Theodore Roosevelt among them. Now you, too, can try to out-puzzle the master. Palace Games’ Great Houdini, Roosevelt and Edison escape rooms — ranked the top escape rooms in the nation — offer elaborately decorated rooms flush with secret panels, hidden passages, fiendish puzzles and some crazy technical wizardry. It’s two hours of awesome. Details: These games are booked by the room ($400, for four to 10 players). Wear sneakers and comfortable clothes; long pants are strongly advised for the Roosevelt room. Reserve your adventure at palace-games.com; find the entrance at 3362 Palace Drive, which loops behind the Palace of Fine Arts, in San Francisco.
OFF THE COUCH Santa Clara
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take about an hour to complete. But budget twice that time for Excalibur, which is the rare twohour escape room. Conspiracy is the perfect choice for the conspiracy theorist in your life, the one who is sure that the government is up to no good and that the next door neighbor only pretends to work at Apple, but is really a foreign spy. Inheritance, on the other hand, presents the opportunity to unravel puzzle after puzzle, in order to find the treasures left behind by Nikola Tesla. Finally, there’s Excalibur, which takes thrill-seekers on a magical mystery tour through Camelot in an effort to find out what happened to the Knights of the Round Table. And in March, Off the Couch plans to open a 14,000-square-foot escape room dubbed Pandorum, which sets the game 100 years in the future and is expected to take — gulp! — eight hours for guests to complete. Details: Prices vary. A spin through Conspiracy, for example, costs $90 for two guests ($45 per person) or $180 for six guests ($30 per person). Bookings are private, so you won’t be escaping with strangers. Wear comfortable clothes; pants are advised for Excalibur. Book your room at offthecouchgames.com; play at 1220 Memorex Drive, Suite 300, in Santa Clara.
OMESCAPE San Jose
Anything — and everything — could be a clue when you’re in one of the Escape Game’s themed puzzle rooms or at Palace Games’ Great Houdini Escape (bottom center). NHAT V. MEYER/STAFF PALACE GAMES
There are five hour-long escape games for you to try here. Newcomers (as well as feline fans) might want to start with Kingdom of Cats, which Omescape lists as a three out of a possible five on the difficulty scale. Plus, it’s got a really fun story line, with the humans (i.e. you) trying to win a tournament designed to find the wisest cat in the land. If you want to move up a notch on the difficulty scale, try BAY AREA NEWS GROUP
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Pandemic Zero and see if you can make your way through a secret lab to find the antidote to a super virus that could wipe out the human race. There’s also Sorcerer’s Sanctum, which offers a spellbinding trip through a house of great magicians. Details: Some games are best played by two ($80), others can accommodate anywhere up to 11 people ($330). Wear comfortable shoes and clothes. Book your room at omescape.us. Locations include 625 Wool Creek Drive, Suite E in San Jose; 5327 Jacuzzi St., Suite 3H in Richmond; and 1135 E Arques Ave in Sunnyvale.
STEMCHEF’S CANDY LAB Danville
Crave some education with your escape room? That’s the idea behind this small, kid-focused escape room in Blackhawk Plaza. Inside the bright, one-roomer, kiddos find themselves locked in a pastel-hued candy lab with a mission. It could be stepping in for an absent candy maker and using clues and tinkering to solve puzzles and create the ultimate dessert (chocolate mousse, anyone?). Or perhaps the season-o-meter is broken and temperatures have stagnated, with leaves still on the trees, and it’s your mission to make the right candy concoction to slip out of fall and into winter. Heavy on science and critical thinking perfect for the 8-and-older set, the 60-to-80 minute adventure also features some history, geography and team-building collaborative skills, which makes it great for drop-off birthday parties, too. Best part? The science theme changes monthly, so kids can savor a variety of yummy scientific flavors.
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Details: Ages 8 to 13. $35 per child. No adults. Not recommended for children under 7. Check website for a version geared toward ages 4-7, coming soon. CandyLab Escape Room is located at 3457 Blackhawk Plaza, between Stella’s and Santa’s Workshop, in Danville; www.stemchef.com
RED DOOR ESCAPE ROOM Concord
You’re playing the ultimate poker game. You’ve got $1 million in chips on the line and an opportunity to unlock bonus bucks, so it’s easy to get greedy and forget to notice the peculiar lockers. Welcome to “Cash Me If You Can,” one of the most difficult escape rooms at Concord’s Red Door Escape Room. Those looking to collaborate on a creative challenge may prefer “The Warrior’s Way,” where the mission is to be chosen as one of The Master’s pupils inside his legendary dojo. All you have to do is split into two groups and demonstrate your aikido worth. Don’t have much time? Opt for “Last Stop,” where you and your team of private investigators must solve a murder case — ID the victim and determine time of death, murder weapon, motive and suspect — all in 25 minutes or less; otherwise, the feds will take the case away from you.
Heads up at San Francisco’s Escape Game, where five mysterious adventures — an elaborate art heist! a search for Gold Rush loot! — unfold just steps from the lobby. NHAT V. MEYER/STAFF
Details: Red Door features four 90-minute escape rooms organized by level of difficulty, time commitment and number of participants (two to eight, ages 14 and up). Most games are $33 per person; “Last Stop” is $17. Red Door is located at 2075 Diamond Blvd., Suite HA-275, Concord; www.reddoorescape.com
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P L AY KELLEE SANTIAGO’S FIVE FAVORITE GAMES
Video game wiz harnesses tech to spark playfulness B Y G I E S O N CAC H O
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ellee Santiago is a big name in the video game world. She co-founded thatgamecompany, one of the breakout indie studios of the PlayStation 3 era, and her work with Jenova Chen got the small team attention with titles such as “Flow” and “Flower” before soaring to widespread acclaim with “Journey.” Her latest job at Niantic, the San Francisco-based company that began as an internal start-up at Google, puts her at the heart of one of the Bay Area’s most promising, pioneering video game companies. The maker of “Ingress,” “Pokemon Go” and “Harry Potter: Wizards Unite,” Niantic has leveraged its augmented reality and geo-location technology to create some of the most wildly popular games for smartphones. “One of the things I love about games (like Pokemon Go),” Santiago says, “is the way they can bring people together, break down walls between us and let us just be playful.” Naturally, we had questions.
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What lessons have you learned from your experiences with thatgamecompany, Ouya and the others?
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Games are hard to make. To embark on creating a video game that was unlike anything you have seen before requires a lot of courage. It can be very hard to see where you are at the beginning – like in “Journey,” an online console game that leaves you with a renewed faith in community. It’s a tumultuous process, and you have to have a lot of faith. You start on a project in unknown territory.
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What drew you to Niantic?
I’ve been a huge fan of Niantic since Field Trip, (an app that told users about nearby landmarks). Fundamentally, it’s using these computers in our pockets to create engagement in the world around us. I love geocaching, finding these everyday secrets and histories around us. I love that fundamental mission.
Game developer Kellee Santiago, seen here at Niantic headquarters in San Francisco’s Ferry Building, sees video games such as Pokemon Go as community builders. KARL MONDON/STAFF
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What makes the Bay Area a special place for the video game industry?
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Why is it important to play games? I mean what’s the purpose?
Personally, I’m fascinated by the intersection of art and technology, and I find the Bay Area is a nexus for that intersection (of) the rich, cultural scene and the hub of big tech. It creates an interesting cross-pollination of thoughts and ideas. That’s great when you’re a developer.
I’m going with (Dutch cultural theorist) Johan Huezinga on this one. Play is a way we practice behaviors. We can look at puppies and see them practicing fighting and gaining skills they need when they’re grown up dogs. Play has that same place in our lives. Games are an important part of our culture. Through games, we practice and behave differently than we might normally. It gives us a safe place to rehearse behavior, learn a subject and explore the world around us.
“WarioWare”: This game involves successfully completing mini-games, but they are so random and weird that it takes half your time just to figure out what you are supposed to do. I just love games that have silliness as a core mechanic. Life is too serious sometimes. “Hidden in Plain Sight”: This XboxLive indie game puts each player in the role of an NPC (a character hidden among identical non-player characters), where you want to win, but don’t want to reveal yourself as a human player. It had low-resolution graphics and a light-hearted sensibility that made it my go-to party game for awhile, as it always had us in stitches. “Papers, Please”: The player takes on the role of a border-crossing immigration officer in a fictional dystopian Eastern bloc-like country. I know, it sounds like the weirdest premise for a game. But this game marries form, function and story so completely and is one of the most perfect video games ever made. “Endless Forest”: In this Tale of Tales game from 2005, players are deer in a forest. It blew my mind in terms of thinking of what a game could be and what other modalities there were to explore. Seven years later, I would release “Journey,” which delves into some of the same experiments and would be called “groundbreaking.” There’s so much still to explore when it comes to ways we can play with each other online. “Pokemon Go”: I remember when it came out, seeing so many families walking around together playing it. “Pokemon Go” showed me there was still so much more to explore in how technology can enable this playfulness. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
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Blackjack goes new wave
Culinary escapes with luxurious spas and high-tech slots BY J E S S I CA YA D E G A R A N
ROHNERT PARK — A flock of illuminated crystal birds dangles from the high ceilings at Graton Resort & Casino, a billion-dollar destination where the penthouse has a butler, pool cabanas actually float and the steakhouse, 630 Park, offers grass-fed Wagyu alongside famed Napa cabs. Open since 2013, Graton is the biggest, glitziest and most Las Vegas-style casino near the Bay Area — roughly an hour north of San Francisco — with a very 2020 vibe. Awash in neutral tones and nestled amid the rolling hills of Sonoma wine country, Graton feels more like a posh resort with games than a traditional casino. Even on the casino floor — home to 3,300 slot machines, 131 table games and a sports bar with 42 flat screens — you can find quiet, smoke-free nooks. And if someone hits the jackpot, you won’t hear the crash of a single coin. Everything’s digital here. “We’re no longer in the business of putting a nickel in a machine and pulling a slot,” explains
High-end restaurants, a spa and blackjack await at the Graton Resort & Casino in Rohnert Park. JANE TYSKA/STAFF
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Cosmopolitan cocktails are just part of the culinary fun at the 630 Park steakhouse at the Graton Resort. At left, the Cache Creek Casino Resort’s C Squared Steakhouse offers high-end steaks paired with wines from Seka Hills, a winery owned by the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. JANE TYSKA/STAFF CACHE CREEK CASINO RESORT
Angelique Hall prepares a margherita pizza for the woodburning oven at Tony’s of North Beach, a Tony Gemignani restaurant at the Graton Resort. Below, the resort’s Boathouse Asian Eatery offers a variety of sushi, including The Trainwreck roll with eel, shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, avocado and tobiko. JANE TYSKA/STAFF
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Graton guest Barbara McCorkel tries her luck at a Wheel of Fortune slot machine, above, while dealer Tawni Tilden tends to the royal flush crowd in the casino’s poker room. JANE TYSKA/STAFF
Greg Sarris, tribal chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, which owns the $820 million casino and the luxe 200-room hotel, which was added in 2016 for $270 million. “Casinos have evolved to serve everyone, even people who don’t gamble. We want everyone to feel welcome here.” It’s still a betting palace — no way around that — but gone are the low-ceilinged, dark and smoky rooms of yore, with narrow aisles designed to get you dizzy. Like Graton, casinos around the country — including Yolo County’s Cache Creek Casino Resort in Brooks, which will complete a major expansion in 2020 — are refining their images and adding amenities to draw in new guests who like high-end pinot noir with their poker or crave dumplings by a master dim sum chef. 44 PLAY
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Dining is a big part of that draw. Graton has expanded the offerings in Rohnert Park with 10 restaurants, including big names. Among them, pizza master Tony Gemignani, whose Tony’s of North Beach eatery is brighter and more spacious than the San Francisco original; Los Angeles’ Daily Grill, with comfort food and local beers on tap; and La Fondita, a Mexican restaurant that launched from a Santa Rosa taco truck Sarris often frequented. He went after them. “You’ll see a lot of families coming to Graton just to eat,” says Sarris, standing outside La Fondita, which is located in the casino-adjacent food court, next to a Starbucks and a Scoops ice cream. Others come for the pampering. Over in the resort
lobby, separated from the casino by a large glass wall, you’ll see Ugg-clad moms taking the elevator to a lavish spa, which has a sauna, ice room, steam room and plunge pool. The menu offers trendy hydrafacials and eight massage enhancements, including Slot Support, a hands-wrists-forearms rub-down perfect for computer types, not just casino gamers. Have those slot games modernized, too? You won’t see any virtual reality — yet. But slot machine manufacturers are trying to appeal to a broader audience, too, says Kari Stout-Smith, Cache Creek’s general manager and chief operating officer. “You’re seeing features like haptics built into the experience, 4D displays and some are branching into role-playing games,” she says. “Every year, you see new games coming out.”
The Cache Creek’s expansion will bring 400 new guest rooms and a tower featuring a pool complex and more to the Capay Valley in 2020. Among the upgrades, a new spa with a Himalayan rock salt wall. CACHE CREEK CASINO RESORT
A Wheel of Fortune slot game featuring those 4D displays and bonus-round haptic effects is one of 270 new machines coming to Cache Creek’s renovated gaming lounge in 2020. But the “crown jewel” of the Capay Valley property’s expansion is a new tower that will add 400 guest rooms and a 4,500-square-foot pool complex with a sun deck, poolside cafe and craft cocktail bar. They’re also revamping their restaurants and spa, which will have a new Himalayan rock-salt wall. The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, which owns and operates Cache Creek, also runs nearby Séka Hills, which produces award-winning olive oils and wines. Casual or non-gamblers may find themselves wandering over for a tasting while their friends hit the
blackjack table. Soon, they may come to Cache Creek for even more: Once complete, the expansion will include an event center with 13,000 square feet of space for weddings, concerts and boxing matches. Stout-Smith calls it “a game changer.” “We are fortunate to have a loyal base of guests, who remember our humble beginnings as a bingo hall and have come on this journey with us,” she says. “This expansion is about continuing to diversify our offerings to include people who enjoy gambling as their primary form of entertainment, but also people who are casual gamblers or may not gamble at all but love to have a fabulous spa experience, steak dinner or glass of wine in the evening.”
IF YOU GO There are casino resort hotels sprinkled across California, from Redding down to Palm Springs and Temecula. Here are two options: Graton Resort & Casino 288 Golf Course Drive, Rohnert Park; www.gratonresortcasino.com Cache Creek Casino Resort 14455 Highway 16, Brooks; www.cachecreek.com
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Kids and grown-ups go loco for the steam train B Y C I R R U S WO O D
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aze at the faces of families riding the steam trains at Berkeley’s Tilden Park, and it’s difficult to tell who’s more excited — the youngsters boarding the Redwood Valley Railway cars or the gleeful parents toting the tots. There’s something about trains that takes us all back to childhood, to the days of Thomas and Sir Topham Hatt, wooden Brio cars and the HO-scale models we longed to touch. For Ellen Thomsen, who has run Tilden’s steam train company with her sister Kathe James for the last 25 years, the railroad is a lifelong passion. Their father, Erich Thomsen, started the diminutive, scale-model, live-steam railway in 1952. “It’s kind of a family business,” Thomsen says.
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How did the Redwood Valley Railway start?
Well, it was kind of a hobby that went crazy and didn’t fit in the backyard anymore. (Our father) was a mechanical engineer for full-size railroads at a time when steam was disappearing. Specifically, he was interested in narrow gauge railroads, the ones used up in the mountains for lumber and mining. He wanted to do something to preserve them, not only the equipment but also the atmosphere. He knew he could never do it full size, so he did it in miniature.
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What are the specs of the Redwood Valley Railway?
It’s 15-inch gauge — that’s the distance between the rails — and it’s five-inch scale. Most narrow gauge is three feet between the rails. So we’re almost half the size of narrow gauge. (For comparison,) Amtrak is 4 foot 8½ between the rails. The mainline is about a mile and a quarter, and we have almost that much in backtrack for servicing and storage.
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What’s your background?
For Redwood Valley Railway co-owner Ellen Thomsen, the steam engines at Berkeley’s Tilden Regional Park are a family legacy. Her father, Erich Thomsen, founded the railway in 1952. JANE TYSKA/STAFF
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I’m a designer. I spent many years designing (for) opera and had a publishing company designing and publishing sewing patterns for vintage clothes and designing pretty much anything that needed it — architecture, interiors, costuming. It’s pretty much all been about reproducing the 19th century. Railroad design, especially around 1900, is very specific, because different railroads had different design philosophies. And when railroads moved across the country, all the jobs were divided by nationalities. The Italians did one thing, the Chinese did another thing, the Germans did another thing. A lot of the carpenters were German. So railroad architecture wound up looking very German.
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Is there a target era you’re trying to reproduce at the railway?
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Between the 1870s and the 1930s, which was the heyday of narrow gauge steam engines. After the 1930s, everything was logged out or mined out, and it became impractical to have so many separate lines and gauges.
RIDE A TRAIN Redwood Valley Railway: The Tilden Steam Trains run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. Find the train station at the corner of Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas, Orinda. Tickets are $3 per person or $12 for a pack of five tickets. www.facebook.com/ RedwoodValleyRailway/. Niles Canyon Railway: During February and March, trains depart from the Fremont and Sunol stations two Sundays a month. From April through August, the trains run every Sunday. Tickets are $9-$20. www. ncry.org. Roaring Camp Railroads: This rail line offers rides from the Felton station through the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains ($23$32). Special events include Thomas the Tank Engine Days, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk jaunts and holiday trains; roaringcamp.com.
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What sets the Redwood Valley Railway apart from other Bay Area attractions?
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The regional parks. The regional park system has been there since 1934, when they started Tilden. Tilden was conceived not only to preserve the land, but also to have some very nice, lowkey activities for families to do besides hiking — like the railroad, the antique merry-go-round and the farm. We have a good way to show people the beautiful scenery without having to hike through it. You’re five minutes from a humongous urban area, (and) people get a taste of something that’s very historical, because we’re very fussy about scale and accuracy. It’s kind of like period performance art.
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Redwood Valley Railway is so popular with kids. What can adults enjoy about it?
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It’s for all ages. We target adults, really, because we don’t want it to be thought of as a kiddie ride. The way we arrived at 5-inch scale is we put two adults on a board and measured how much space they would need to sit side by side comfortably on our railway cars. But kids like it, too.
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Belly up to the bar-arcade 4 Bay Area video game spots where Pac-Man pairs with a pint B Y C I R R U S WO O D
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he last time I went to a video arcade, I got carded at the door. The bouncer didn’t care if I was young enough to play. He needed to check if I was old enough to drink. Bar-arcades such as Emporium Oakland, Campbell’s LVL Up and San Jose’s Miniboss are part of a new entertainment trend that combines Mario and margaritas, PacMan and pints. Gleaming games line the walls, cocktail shakers clatter at the bar, and at some places, the aroma of deep-fried mac and cheese poppers and pulled pork sliders wafts from the kitchen. Take LVL Up, a gastro-arcade that offers a tasty pub menu, as well as 10 pinball games and 13 video arcade games, where guests can play Pac-Man and Mortal Kombat solo, with a fellow patron or even as part of a league. “We have people who come in and do pinball leagues,” says manager Julian Robles. “We also try to do tournaments for StreetFighter and Mortal Kombat.” For those who prefer to unplug while they game, LVL UP also keeps a shelf full of classic board and card games, such as Sorry and Uno. These grown-up arcades offer the 21-and-up set a
The signature bleep-bloop sound of arcade games makes a suitably lively backdrop for a trio of friends — Jacob Quintana, left, Philip Christian and Gabriel Gutierrez — during an evening of cards, suds and laughter at Campbell’s LVL Up. RANDY VAZQUEZ/STAFF
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chance to recapture some of the joys of childhood without the restrictions. Play some Q*bert. Have a beer. So what if it’s a school night? “One of my favorite things about working here is seeing people in their 30s and 40s come in, and their faces light up like they’re 10 years old,” says Adam Wille, a bartender at Emporium Oakland. Wille has a series of classic video game characters tattooed on his right arm, bicep to shoulder: Mario; Bowser; the multiplying, stackable blocks of Tetris. He rolls up his sleeve to show more. Though not a requirement for the job, “it didn’t hurt the interview,” he notes. Emporium Oakland is the second location of the Chicago-based franchise to open in the Bay Area. Emporium San Francisco opened in 2017 in the historic Harding Theater on Divisadero. The Oakland location shares its block with the Fox Theater, in the former location of Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe. (Tough luck, Rudy) The San Francisco location is the biggie, but Emporium Oakland still features 18 multiplayer arcade games. Some classics are recognizable even to those only casually familiar with arcade games — Tetris, Street Fighter II, Dig Dug. Others are more obscure — Burger Time, Robotron. The night I visited, most of the patrons were about my age — not quite old enough to remember Atari, way too old for TikTok. Which meant the games were new to me, but that I would now have to fumble through them with the reflexes of middle age. I didn’t have the chops for something like StreetFighter, and while Tetris appealed to my sense of order, I knew even that was probably beyond me. I needed something simple, not too many buttons, with a character relatable to my thirty-something, just-trying-notto-get-squished life. Naturally, I chose Frogger. I picked it because it seemed the least complicated, but it still
The Jurassic Park Arcade is just one of the many video, arcade and pinball games available at LVL Up. RANDY VAZQUEZ/STAFF
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arcades to try LVL Up: This gastropub and arcade is open from 3 p.m. to midnight Monday-Thursday and noon to midnight Friday-Sunday at 400 E. Campbell Ave. in Campbell; www. thelvlup.com. Emporium Oakland: This bar and arcade is open from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. weekdays, and 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. weekends, at 1805 Telegraph Ave. in Oakland. Emporium San Francisco offers the same hours at 616 Divisadero St. in San Francisco. https://emporiumsf.com Miniboss: Open 5 p.m. to midnight Sunday-Wednesday, and 5 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Thursday-Saturday at 52 E. Santa Clara St. in San Jose; https://www.sjminiboss.com.
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took me three lives just to get halfway across the screen, dodging traffic, hopping logs, learning the rules with every token. (Jump on the log, but not in the water? Then jump in the water but not on the land?) Having missed out on the adolescent experience of whiling away hours and quarters at an arcade, I now got to have the very adult experience of balancing a beer while furiously toggling a joystick and yelling at a hapless amphibian caught mid-commute. I will not disclose the embarrassingly high number of tokens it took me to make it through the first round — there is no way my initials are ever going to appear among the high scores — but I will admit I was greatly helped by having arrived during happy hour (every day from opening until 7 p.m.) and got four complimentary tokens with my drink. Back at the bar, Wille admitted he’s had similar experiences, having to remind himself token by token how each game works — although the job perk of limitless tokens makes it easier. But while there are customers eager to nudge each other out of the high scores on the video games, Wille saves his competitiveness for one of the more analog attractions. “I’m kind of partial to Skee-ball, if I’m being honest,” he says. “It’s the most competed against among the staff.”
Left: Unlike some bar-arcades, Campbell’s LVL Up welcomes kids, such as 5-year-old PacMan fan Zane Otis, too. Top: Ten pinball machines and 13 video games await the game-playing crowds at LVL Up. Above: A father-son Mario Kart session sends Sean and Elliot Andersen racing down the game’s colorful speedway (as Luigi, no doubt, beams his signature death stare). RANDY VAZQUEZ/STAFF
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Hurling for hilarity Heaving an axe at a target makes tossing a dart look like child’s play B Y J OA N M O R R I S
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ired of throwing a small dart at a round target? Done with rolling balls at pins or hitting one ball into another with a stick? Then pick up an axe and come on over here. The evolution of axe throwing as a sport — yes, really — comes courtesy of a group of Canadian friends who got bored during a weekend getaway a dozen years ago and decided to throw an axe at a tree stump. People have thrown axes for centuries, but this was arguably the first time anyone did it just for fun.
From there, the Backyard Axe-Throwing League was born and the sport has proliferated, spawning an international federation and spreading to six countries and countless formal — and backyard — venues. Over the last decade, axe throwing has grown to include elements of different games — HORSE, Around the World, Human vs Zombies. Or you can just throw to earn points and compete against your friends. Michael Hill, owner of Pleasanton’s soon-to-open Limitless Axes & Ales, learned the art of axe throwing as a Boy Scout, earning his Paul Bunyan award on the path to becoming an Eagle Scout. A couple of years ago, he went axe throwing in New York and fell in love with it all over again. Hill, 37, and his wife Brook are about to open their own axe-throwing venue, an extension of Limitless Escape Games, a business Hill started after leaving tech to spend more time with Brook and their two red-headed daughters, 4 and 1. We asked Hill,
From scout camp — where he earned a Paul Bunyan award — to Limitless Axes and Ales, Michael Hill keeps things sharp in Pleasanton. ARIC CRABB/STAFF
who loves axe puns, to explain the appeal of hurling a sharp object at a wall.
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What exactly is axe throwing all about?
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You could have opened a pub with dart boards. Why
Think darts, but with axes. It’s actually much easier than most expect. “Axeperts” — lane coaches — go over safety, technique, allow some practice throws, and then the fun begins.
WHERE TO PLAY Limitless Axe Throwing will be located at 1809 Santa Rita Road in Pleasanton; https://www.facebook. com/LimitlessAxes. Axeventures Axe Throwing ($30 per person) is open daily at 2566 Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley; www. axeventures-axethrowing.com Bad Axe Throwing ($27 per person) is open daily at 30 Hill St. in Daly City; https://badaxethrowing.com.
axes?
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Nowadays, people are looking for unique entertainment experiences, and we certainly check that box. I wanted to bring an “axe-citing,” family-friendly event venue to Pleasanton where people could come for team-building events and blow off some steam and where a group of Scouts could come and earn merit badges or, for example, where a bunch of moms on a night out can let loose, drink a glass of wine or
have a cold beer and unlock their inner bad-axe.
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Can men and women compete on a level playing field?
Absolutely. In fact, when my wife and I went on a trip to Brooklyn, we actually went axe throwing while she was 20 weeks pregnant. We got paired up with others, since there were only two
of us. We were throwing with a young couple on a date and a group of guys celebrating a birthday. My wife kicked all our axes!
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Can you give us some tips for throwing the perfect axe?
As Yoda would say, “Size matters not.” This holds very true in axe throwing. Anyone can throw an axe — you definitely don’t need to be a big, burly lumberjack. Find your throwing spot. You need to find the spot for you to throw the axe from. This will ensure (the axe does) a full rotation. Don’t flick it. It’s a fluid motion. Bring the axe straight back behind your head and throw it straight forward, keeping your wrist and your elbow locked. Have fun. Seriously, this is the most important factor. Relax, throw out some high fives, and just let loose. The more relaxed you are, the better you will throw. Oh, and having a beer or two also helps.
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Slurp, nosh, roll the dice Board game bars and d parlors lay out a full menu of merriment B Y J E S S I CA YA D E G A R A N
Left: Hilarity inevitably follows each round of Cards Against Humanity, as Berkeley residents Cynthia Mejia, left, Melissa Macias, Tamaya Reid and Patrick Smith sip and play at Berkeley’s Victory Point Cafe. Above: Forbidden Island is among the cafe’s 800 board games. RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF
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he bright afternoon sun seeps through the large sidewalk windows and bounces off the concrete floors at the Victory Point Cafe on North Berkeley’s Shattuck Avenue. Inside, groups of merry people sip hot cocoa and craft beer as they hunch over board games, laughing, strategizing and daring one another to roll the dice and take a risk. And there isn’t an iPhone in sight. My husband makes eye contact with a staffer — a game guru — who guides our family to the only open table on this busy wintry weekend. He wastes no time: “So, what do you like to play?” My husband and I look at each other, then at our 8-year-old son. The three of us spew Hasbro titles: Monopoly. Scrabble. Othello. It’s all we know. “OK, I have a few ideas,” the guru says, smiling. “Be right back.” He returns with two games we’ve never heard of but spend the next two hours playing with abandon, fueled by craft coffee and piping-hot pizza from the kitchen. It’s the best time I’ve spent with my family in weeks. We’ve all been to cafes. And we’ve all been to game stores. But Victory Point Cafe, which opened in 2015 and has since more than doubled its space to 3,200 square feet, is the Bay Area’s first board game bar. Here, craft beer and bites mix with 800 board games. You pay a small fee to sip IPAs while settling the island of Catan — or dealing a few raucous rounds of Cards Against Humanity — and, in an increasingly virtual world, make personal and physical connections with people. The trend started in Canada,
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Europe and China — Beijing itself has more than 200 board game cafes — and has now spread across most major U.S. cities. There’s Burbank’s Geeky Teas, Seattle’s Mox Boarding House and Denver’s Board Game Republic, to name just a few. And soon there will be more here: Toronto’s Snakes & Lattes has announced plans to expand to San Jose and San Francisco. The Inner Sunset is already home to The Game Parlour, where Edison-bulbed chandeliers and a gourmet menu bring the table-top gaming craze to a new level. In addition to a whopping 1,000 classic and modern games available, the cafe offers sweet mochi waffles, savory waffle sandwiches, Three Twins Ice Cream, beer, wine and Ritual Coffee. In a way, board game cafes are the new night clubs. People wait in line on Saturday nights just to get into Glendale’s Game Häus and Manhattan’s The Uncommons. Victory Point Cafe strongly recommends table reservations on evenings, weekends and holidays. The crowds are coming for the games, yes, but also to connect with friends offline and meet new people, says Victory Point co-owner Derek DeSantis. “Games break the ice and are a social lubricant,” DeSantis says. “We wanted to get people away from their screens and sharing time with each other in a space that welcomes all ages — families, college kids and older folks.” At Victory Point, you pay an entry fee — $5 per person on weekdays; $7.50 after 6 p.m. and on weekends — to stay as long as you want, choosing from board games stacked on IKEA-style black bookcases and conveniently organized into 10 categories, including two-player, children,
Left: Mana may fuel Magic the Gathering, but it’s the Victory Point pizza that helps fuel the players. RAY CHAVEZ/STAFF
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party, word, heavy strategy and nostalgia. Grab a game, then hit the counter for made-to-order pizzas, hot sandwiches, salads or a warm drink from the espresso bar, which serves Devout Coffee. Victory Point also offers 10 local beers and wines on tap, plus kombucha and root beer. Something for the kids? Our son wanted the Straus organic soft serve and a Candy Shop Bowl of Skittles and Sour Patch Kids, but he settled for a lemonade and Chex Mix. Perhaps the coolest part is how helpful the Victory Point staff is. After suggesting Cryptid, a new deduction game of honest misdirection, our guru set up the modular board and handed us each a clue book, explaining the game’s objective: to locate a mystery creature without giving away what little information you have about its whereabouts. Instead of spending time reading directions or arguing over set-up, we got right to noshing and playing. An hour later, after a few fist pumps and a happy dance, we were deeply focused on a less intense and almost meditative game, Second Chance, made by Stronghold Games. Created by renowned game designer Uwe Rosenberg of Cottage Garden fame, Second Chance is a small-box game in which players draw puzzle cards featuring polyomino — think Tetris shapes — and color them onto their grids as efficiently as they can. The game ends when the deck of cards runs out, or a player fills her grid or has the fewest empty spaces left — and wins. But we found ourselves playing Second Chance over and over again, switching from coffee to beer to hot chocolate, content to be together and never once taking a photo to prove it.
Berkeley’s Payton Murray, left, and Davis resident Jill Eymann double check the Wingspan rule book.
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6 game spots
Victory Point Cafe: Choose from 800 board games, plus pizzas, sandwiches, beer and wine at this Berkeley board game bar. Reservations recommended. $5 per person on weekdays; $7.50 on evenings, weekends and holidays. Opens at 8 a.m. on weekdays, 10 a.m. on weekends at 1797A Shattuck Ave.; www.victorypointcafe.com. The Game Parlour: This San Francisco board game cafe offers 1,000 board games, plus waffle sandwiches and an espresso bar. Game play is $5 per person. Opens at 11 a.m. Monday-Saturday and 1 p.m. on Sundays at 1342 Irving St.; www. thegameparlour.com. Black Diamond Games: This Concord shop offers board games, card games — you name it. Plus pay-to-play sessions for Dungeons & Dragons and Pokemon, and board game nights. Seating for 120 people. Snacks available for purchase. Open daily at 1950 Market St., Suite E, Concord; https:// blackdiamondgames.com Isle of Gamers: This massive game store in Santa Clara’s Moonlite Shopping Center offers seating for up to 70 players and knowledgeable staffers obsessed with everything from D&D to Super Tock and Quarriers! Snacks for sale. Open daily at 2770 El Camino Real, Santa Clara; www. isleofgamers.com Bigger Better Games: Obsessed with Magic: The Gathering? So is this little Fremont shop with cold sodas and weekly tournaments for Pokemon, D&D, and, yes, Friday Night Magic. Open Tuesday-Sunday at 43012 Christy St., Fremont; www. biggerbettergames.com Game Kastle: This huge game shop inside Mountain View’s San Antonio Shopping Center offers seating for 350 and tons of tournaments, demos and drafts. Large selection of board and role-playing games, plus Starbucks coffee and a few snacks for purchase. Open daily at 550 Showers Drive, Mountain View; https://gamekastle.co
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Bay Area Quidditch players find magic on a muggle field B Y J OA N M O R R I S
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hirley Yu owes Quidditch — the high-flying magical sport beloved by Harry Potter and Hogwarts fans — for a boost in her sports photography ambitions and, possibly, even her job as a software engineer. She also can credit Quidditch for her torn ACL and months of rehab, but she’s not holding grudges. Instead, she’s managing the year-old Bay Area Breakers Quidditch team, which includes players from Hayward and Menlo Park. It’s one of more than 450 teams around the world. For the non-magical muggles out there, J.K. Rowling’s invented sport is played on broomsticks, as wizards soar high above the pitch in an effort to score on — or defend — three goals set at each end of the arena. A keeper guards the goals against chasers, who try to throw a quaffle (a ball) through the hoops, while dodging bludgers hurled at them by beaters. Meanwhile, the seeker flies through, above and below the action, trying to catch the winged-golden snitch. Catch the snitch, and the game is over. In the non-magical version, the basics are the same: Players must keep a broomstick between their legs as they play. But the snitch is played by a runner with a weight-
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Accio, Golden Snitch! In the muggle world, software engineer Shirley Lu manages the Bay Area Breakers Quidditch team. RANDY VAZQUEZ/STAFF
ed yellow flag flapping from the waistband. The snitch is released 17 minutes into the game; the team seekers hit the turf one minute later. It’s been described as a cross between rugby, dodge ball and basketball, which helps to explain Yu’s injury. “I was playing in a tournament in Los Angeles,” Yu says. “During my second match of the day, I made a cut to initiate contact with another player and tore my ACL. Since then, I’ve had reconstructive surgery and worked with a team of physical therapists to get back into playing shape. I’m hoping to be able to make a comeback in a few months.” As for the sport’s unexpected career impact, Yu was still in college when she was chosen as lead developer to build the Quidditch World Cup 7 website. The website was wildly successful, drawing hundreds of millions of visitors in the months leading up to the tournament — and the experience led to other jobs, including her present one. Her Quidditch photographs have been featured in German Glamour’s Harry Potter edition and other publications.
Q A
How did you start playing? The summer after my junior year, I had an opportunity to
WANT TO PLAY? The Bay Area Breakers are looking for more members. The team practices from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays at Hayward’s Cannery Park, and from 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays at Menlo Park’s Burgess Park. Find details at www.bayareabreakers. com. Quidditch not for you? Shirley Yu offers up some other unusual game options: Segway polo — Segways take the place of horses in these Silicon Valley polo matches organized by Segway Off Road; www. segwayoffroad.com/segway-polo/ Kayak polo — Think water polo with kayaks — and youth clinics held in a heated San Leandro pool; www.bayareakayakpolo.com Archery tag — Dodge ball meets paintball — with bows and non-pointy arrows; http:// archeryzonebayarea.com Competitive hide and seek — Typically organized on Meetup or Facebook — or among friends — these games are played in playgrounds and parks.
play for Gryffindor. I was — still am — a massive Harry Potter fan, so it was perfect for me. In college, I played for the Whomping Wellesleys of Wellesley College, and after moving out to the Bay Area for work, I played for the Silicon Valley Skrewts, San Francisco Argonauts and now the Bay Area Breakers. I played as a beater for most of my career. In my seventh season, I transitioned to chaser and have found much more success in that position. What can I say? Scoring is fun.
Q A
What the appeal of Quidditch?
Honestly, the community of players. The sport is a lot of fun, but meeting players from all over California, across the U.S. and around the world is the best part for me. I have friends in so many different countries because of this sport, and it’s an incredibly diverse, supportive and inclusive community. We’re super competitive on the pitch but best friends off the pitch.
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Is there a specific type of player? Young, old? Athletic, one step beyond couch potato?
A
All of the above. Quidditch turns nerds into jocks and jocks into nerds.
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These hunters gather in groups to follow clues, find the treasure — and make human connections
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t’s a breezy fall day in San Francisco’s Presidio — and the hunt is on. A group of four co-workers is tasked with naming two three-letter words that sound alike and start with the same letter — and the first word is something hardcore animal lovers don’t like other people wearing. It takes a few tries before they hit on “fur.” And what word sounds exactly like fur? “Fir!” Yes, the evergreen. Believe it or not, fur-fir offers the exact clue necessary to decode a map of the military base-turned-national park — and that map leads to a memorial with vital information for solving yet another puzzle. The group scampers off. Meanwhile, in another part of San Francisco, hunters are puzzling out what eccentric publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst had in common with even-more-eccentric Bavarian King Ludwig II. No spoilers — but the solution leads to a secret alley offering a surprising and dramatic view of Coit Tower. Who knew? Welcome to the fun of scavenger hunts — active, adventurous, brain-challenging games that encourage people to explore San Francisco and its famous neighborhoods, as well as museums, parks and other cultural, historic and scenic Bay Area destinations. Whether you call them scavenger hunts, treasure hunts or “urban sleuthing adventures,” these cryptic treks have become increasingly popular in the last decade or so. They appeal to locals who want to play tourist in their own Bay Area backyards — but who also want to do something more original and more hands-on and engaging than just hopping on a red
Expect to spend the entire day — and many miles of delightful clue-following — if you join a scavenger hunt devised by Jayson Wechter. JAYSON WECHTER/SF TREASURE HUNTS
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Foraging
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sightseeing bus with a bunch of tourists. It’s an activity for groups of players — friends celebrating a birthday or an upcoming wedding, families enjoying a reunion or, increasingly, co-workers finding a way to connect, laugh and collaborate outside the workplace. Professional game designers arm the merry hunters with maps and a series of puzzles to solve, either on paper or on apps they can download to their phones. “I’ve worked for years as a private investigator, and I have always been interested in local history, urban topography and exploring the urban environment,” says Jayson Wechter, who owns San Francisco Treasure Hunts. “I also loved playing games with friends when I was growing up. I love showing people undiscovered parts of San Francisco and having them get that ah-ha moment of solving a puzzle or mystery.” Wechter says he first began creating hunts in San Francisco’s Chinatown more than 30 years ago. He still organizes an annual Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt for the public — the next will be Feb. 8 — with ticket sales that benefit a local arts organization. And his hunts in the city’s Financial District or North Beach lead people to unexpected spots, that hidden Coit Tower viewpoint, for example, or an alley that houses the city’s tiniest bookstore. The pro puzzle business began as a hobby for Dan Kleiber, of Mr. Treasure Hunt, but he soon realized he could turn the hunts into a fun side business, while he worked in banking. Kleiber now runs Mr. Treasure Hunt adventures full time, hosting more than 200 hunts a year, mostly for corporate clients looking to offer team-building activities for employees. It’s the puzzles, exploration and teamwork that appeal to him — and the teamwork aspect is especially appealing to corporate clients, including major tech firms like Facebook and Google. Kleiber says companies see valuable morale-building benefits in letting employees get outdoors, work together in small groups and think in ways they don’t get to while looking at screens. Kleiber organized a hunt for 50 Facebook employees in the Presidio in November, for example, that took them to the Korean War Memorial. “The Presidio is a great spot for learning and experiencing history!” he says. It also doesn’t hurt that participants can enjoy some healthy competition, as their teams vie to be the first to solve the clues and finish the hunt. Corporate clients are a mainstay for Josh Zipin’s Handstand hunts, too, but his company was actually inspired by the ways he and his friends liked to play when they got together. “We were a group of friends who enjoyed going on adventures together — running, backpacking, biking and taking advantage of all the Bay Area has to offer,” Zipin says. “We realized that we were becoming much closer friends doing these adventures together.” Like S.F. Treasure Hunts, Handstand hosts major X may not actually mark the spot, but Handstand’s scavenger hunts send happy participants in hot pursuit of clues — and glory. JOSH ZIPIN/HANDSTAND
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Elated participants gather for the annual San Francisco Hunt, a daylong scavenger hunt that sends teams of brightly clad frolickers across the city.
JOSH ZIPIN/HANDSTAND
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JOIN THE HUNT
S.F. Treasure Hunts: Former private investigator Jayson Wechter offers hunts throughout San Francisco, including the Exploratorium, as well as Angel Island, Oakland, San Jose, Palo Alto and Wine Country. His annual Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt will be Feb. 8. Tickets (priced at $15-$60 last year) go on sale in January. Find details at www.sftreasurehunts.com Mr. Treasure Hunt: Dan Kleiber designs hunts for various San Francisco locations, including museums such as the de Young and the California Academy of Sciences and the San Francisco Zoo. His hunts also explore Stanford University, Yountville wine country and downtown Walnut Creek, Burlingame, Santa Rosa and Half Moon Bay; www. mrtreasurehunt.com. Handstand: The company designs custom hunts for corporate clients and groups that can be downloaded to participants’ smart phones and that can take place in San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area, as well as Los Angeles, Seattle and Washington, D.C. The annual San Francisco Hunt is scheduled for May 2. Ticket prices for 2020 have not been set yet, but last year’s were $53; https:// handstandwith.us.
public hunts in San Francisco — including one on Valentine’s Day and a larger, day-long San Francisco Hunt which will take place May 2. Last year’s San Francisco Hunt drew 600 people of all ages who explored locations throughout the city on foot, by bike and via public transportation. For added fun, participants were encouraged to upload photos of themselves posing at their destinations. The San Francisco Hunt combines everything that makes for a memorable day, Zipin says: “There’s the physical challenge of walking or biking, combined with the challenge of figuring out how to get around the city, with the intellectual stimulation of solving riddles and problems. Finally there is the adventure of seeing new places and learning new stories about the place around you.” 70 PLAY
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Top: Anyone participating in an SF Treasure Hunt, designed by a former private investigator, faces volleys of clues both devious and arcane. JAYSON WECHTER/SF TREASURE HUNTS
Bottom: The Handstand treasure hunt app offers clues to participants along the way.
JOSH ZIPIN/HANDSTAND
A game of chess unfolds in the sun at Los Gatos’ Loma Prieta Winery. JIM GENSHEIMER/STAFF FILE
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